Jamil Salmi

Jamil Salmi is a global tertiary education expert providing policy advice and consulting services to governments, universities, professional associations, multilateral development banks and bilateral cooperation agencies. Until January 2012, he was the World Bank’s tertiary education coordinator. He wrote the first World Bank policy paper on higher education reform in 1994 and was the principal author of the Bank’s 2002 Tertiary Education Strategy entitled, “Constructing Knowledge Societies: New Challenges for Tertiary Education." During the past twenty-three years, Dr. Salmi has provided advice on tertiary education development, financing reforms and strategic planning to governments and university leaders in about 95 countries all over the world. Dr. Salmi’s 2009 book addresses TheChallenge of Establishing World-Class Universities. His 2011 book, co-edited with Professor Phil Altbach, was entitled The Road to Academic Excellence: The Making of World-Class Research Universities. His latest book, Tertiary Education and the Sustainable Development Goals, was published in August 2017.

While the first national excellence initiatives reflected a long-term national commitment to strengthen the contribution of tertiary education to economic development, the most recent wave seems to be stimulated by the perception of a competitive disadvantage as measured by the global rankings.

For the past 7 years, the Russian government has actively sought ways of enhancing the performance and contribution of its leading universities, in many cases setting up new federal universities that resulted from mergers.

University campuses all over the world remained relatively calm during the first decade of the new century. The lack of student activism prompted comments about the apathy of today’s students compared to the high level of political awareness and commitment of their predecessors in the late 60s and throughout the 70s. By contrast, 2011 saw waves of student protests around the cost of university education in places as diverse as Seoul, London, Berkeley, Bogota and Santiago.

Institutions around the world are pursuing recognition as “world class” universities. In many cases, establishing world-class universities has been incorporated into national development strategies. This week’s blog is part of an ongoing series addressing these initiatives and the errors and oversights often committed in the course of implementation.

Editor's note: This week's blog is an addendum to a blog posted last year. As with all initiatives, different strategies are needed for initiating and sustaining world class institutions. What follows are recommendations for sustaining these initiatives. The earlier blog can be read here.

“The opportunity to start from a blank page and create an entire institution from concept to reality is a rare and precious gift. It enables many possibilities that would be unthinkable at established universities… But it requires vision, passion, and courage to attempt to innovate and to deliberately create a new and improved learning culture”. Richard Miller, President of Olin College